


Parallels

by Phinmeister



Series: Adam and Rick [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-13 05:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15356967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phinmeister/pseuds/Phinmeister
Summary: I rediscovered an old short thing I wrote 3 years ago back when my Adam and Rick were deeply involved with the ways of time travel. Thus there is time travel in this... novella? Not sure what to call it. Anyway, I edited it to fit with the canon of my series, but don't consider it actually a part of it. It's just fun and mostly explores Rick's life and his relationship with Adam, as is what I tend to write about.





	1. Chapter 1

They both giggled; that was the word for it, giggled. Not quite chuckled, louder than just laughing. Giggled.

They were both grown men. Why were they giggling? He didn't really know, and he was sure Adam didn't either.

"You're cute," said Adam. He kissed him on the nose, a soft, quick peck, and they giggled again. His nose felt a bit wet now, and warmer than it had been before, but that didn't matter. 

"You're cuter," he said in response.

"You're cutest."  


"You're the cutest person to ever be cute ever."  


"What?"  


"I don't know."

They were in love, and they were ridiculously cheesy about it. That was the fun part of being in love, really - being silly, obnoxious, and immature about it, and having neither of them mind that at all.

"Sooo," he said. They were in bed at that moment, both of them lying down on the covers, not under them. Maybe they were too awake for that. Maybe they had forgotten. "When are you gonna write a song about me?"

Adam scoffed. "About you? Why the heck would I write a song about you?"  


"Oh, I don't know, because I'm, like, your husband. But that's no real reason to write a song, is it?"  


"I write songs from the bottom of my heart. You're more at, like, the top, so you can't be my inspiration."  


"Oh, I see. That's very clever."  


"Thanks, I just thought of it."

There was nothing for them to do, really. No big plans, no big deadlines (none that were close, anyway), nothing pressing on their minds, other than each other. They may have been acting stupid and ridiculous, but they didn't care, because they could do that and no one in the world could possibly have anything to say about it.

"I think," said Adam, "someday I'm gonna get really famous, like, super famous. And I'll have to go on tours and stuff, and I'll ban you from all of them."

"What!"

"Because you're a big dork."

"What!"

"Sorry, but I can't associate myself with someone of your..." Adam paused, finding the word. "Caliber, I don't know."

"Oh, so you're saying I'm better than you?"  


"Am I? I don't actually really know what 'caliber' means."  


"Maybe use another word, then."  


"I can't think of any. Um, your aura of filth that you display at all times."  


"Display? What am I, a computer?"  


"Okay, I'm bad with words. Anyway, you're not going."  


"Good. That gives me more chances to hang out with hot babes."  


"Oh, yeah, I can totally see you doing that."  


"See? It works out better for the both of us. You get sweaty and gross, and I also get sweaty and gross -"  


"Oh, shut up." They both laughed again.  


"Just kidding, babe." He leaned over and kissed his forehead.  


"I'm also kidding," said Adam. "If you don't go on any of the tours I'll eventually have then I'll go crazy."

"I bet you will."

"No, I will. You better be around at all times."

"Even when you're actually performing on stage?"  


"Yeah. You can take pictures."  


"That would be fun, actually." He looked up at the ceiling, his eyes wide. "I could take pictures... so many pictures of you."  


"All hot and sweaty?"

He grinned. "Yeah."

"Uh huh."

He did like that idea, quite a lot. He only really had experience taking pictures of the outdoors, not people, but he had taken plenty of photos of Adam in the past, and those were always his favorites. 

Adam leaned in closer to him and rested his head on his shoulder, and traced a line with his index finger down his chest. "You better come with me, though. And take a billion pictures."

"I want to now. When are you going on tour?"

"Whenever I get famous."

"We better start marketing now. You write a catchy jingle and play it on the radio twenty four - seven."

"That won't get annoying at all."  


"I'd like it!"

"You would."

He definitely would.

For the first time that night, they were quiet, probably thinking about the tour they weren't going on.

"What if you do get famous?" he asked. "Like, what if you make an album, it sells really well, and we get a ton of money?"

"It probably won't change anything. Maybe I won't have to go to work anymore."

His eyes lit up. "Really?"

One of the worst parts of his daily life was waiting for Adam to get home from work. It was boring, tedious, and oh so lonely. Anything that meant he could spend more time with him was great.

"Yeah, maybe. I think that would be fine. I can really work on music full time then." He sounded wistful, and he knew that he wasn't the only one who was dying for this imaginary career change to happen right away.

"Get famous. Now."

Adam laughed. "I wish it were that easy."  


"You better get working, mister."  


"Right now?"  


"No, not right now. Stay here." He reached an arm around him and pulled him closer.  


"Mm." Adam turned and rested his face on his chest. "Will you get famous if I get famous?"  


"For what?"  


"Taking pictures."  


"Of you?"  


"Of anything. You could."  


"Maybe. I could sell a couple of prints, yeah."  


"A couple?"  


"Well, that's what I did to pay for my old house."  


"Yeah, that dingy little thing. Come on, I can give you tons of publicity. I don't even know why we haven't done that already."  


"I think some people like my pictures."  


"It needs to be everyone."  


"Aw."  


Adam turned to look at him. "Are you selling yourself short again?"  


He was, always did. "Am I?"  


"Yes. You could totally sell more than a couple."  


"I don't know. Maybe. It's just that I never have." Which was the truth.

"There are a lot of things you never expected you'd do. Give yourself a break. You're great."

"I am?" Of course Adam thought so; he was him.

"Mm hm. Absolutely."  


"Aw. Thanks, Adam."  


"No prob." He turned away again, still resting his head on him. "Good night."  


"Good night?"  


"I'm tired."  


"Oh. Good night."  


"Ha. Sweet dreams."  


"You too."

-

Adam was right; his old house really had been dingy. It wasn't much of a house as much as it was a sort of big apartment; he had to pay rent on it, and it was close to other houses, and it was relatively cheap, and it wasn't exactly pretty.

He had loathed living in it, but at the same time had been quite grateful that he had found a place to stay in the first place. It was only him staying there, of course, so he didn't have to worry about multiple bedrooms or anything huge like that. It had had two bedrooms, as it were, along with a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, and a rather small closet. He hadn't cared about the size, but he did care about the fact that everything was so... dim.

"Can we get some lights in here?" he said to his mom the day he moved in.  


"Sure, but remember, you're paying for your own electricity now."  


He sighed. "Yes, Mom."  


"Just warning you. Yes, I think this room could benefit from some lights."  


"Maybe a lamp. Those are all right. Like, one of those big ones that stand up on the floor."  


He wasn't exactly the master of decal. He did occasionally watch reality shows, though, so he had an idea of what looked good in a house.  


Along with a couple of lamps, he had a small fridge and a smaller microwave (he bought groceries about once every two weeks, so he didn't need to splurge on those), a coffee maker, and various other items such as paper towels and the like. He had his own bed sheets, so he didn't need to buy any of those, even though his mom told him he should.  


"I don't need new bed sheets, these work fine."

"You'll need more than one set, though."

She was correct, of course, but he was a lazy, twenty-three year old bachelor, and so he could not care less.

He supposed it wasn't the worst living opportunity. It was his own living space, after all, and that was nothing to despise. It was just boring, and it lacked personality, and there wasn't much he could do to make it nice, because he did not own it.

Oh well. He was only there for just under two years, until he moved in with Adam. That had been wonderful. Adam had a much nicer house, of course, and it got a lot of sunlight, and it was further away from people than his house had been, which was preferable. He had only needed a couple of trips from his house to Adam's to move his various possessions, as he didn't have that many. He had left the fridge and microwave, but had kept the coffee maker, because they never knew when they might need another.

Good times. He was all settled in with Adam now, of course. Everything was good, and fine, and comforting to the max, and he couldn't have been happier with where he was.

 

 

-

When he woke up the next day, he could sense that something was horribly wrong before he even properly awoke, and certainly before he opened his eyes. The whole atmosphere just felt different; he had gotten so used to living with Adam, and waking up in the same spot every morning, that it had almost become part of him. So when he woke up this morning, it didn't take much to sense that something was different.  


But what was different? He was almost scared to open his eyes. What would await him? Another house? Another dimension? Death?  


He opened his eyes anyway, and once he did they immediately shot open.  


Well, it wasn't death, but he couldn't be too doubtful of the other two possibilities.  


"What...?" he mumbled under his breath.  


Grey ceiling, grey walls, grey carpet. Not a grey bed, although it very well could have been. Musky air, a faint sound of cars in the distance, and that stupid picture of lilacs he used to have hanging up on the opposite wall.  


He raised his eyebrows. "What?" he repeated, somewhat louder.  


Adam. No Adam. There was not the faintest sign of Adam, and he wouldn't expect there to be, seeing as he couldn't have fit with Rick on a twin sized bed - the twin sized bed he had used to sleep in. Before he had met him...  


No Adam. There was barely any signs of life at all around him, so of course there couldn't have been Adam. He wasn't there... He wasn't there.  


Of course he wasn't there. But why was he there?  


He pulled the sheets off him and got out of bed, his feet hitting that horrible grey carpet that had used to irritate his feet in the first place. He had forgotten; he should have forgotten. There was no need to remember, because he shouldn't be here.  


Here. What was here? It was his old room, in what he had to guess was his old house. Was it some sort of simulation? No, that was ridiculous. Had he went and time traveled in the dead of night, and then completely forgotten about it? But then where would his past self be?  


Past self. Ha. He was in the past.  


Why, why, why?  


The past... the past. Why the past? He didn't want to be in the past. The past was behind him, as the past should be. He hated the past. The past didn't have Adam.  


Adam... where was he? He couldn't be here. He hadn't met him yet.  


The thought of that hurt him, and he had to sit down again. He sighed and stared at the lilac picture again. He had gotten rid of that - it was gone.  


Not gone. Nothing was gone, apparently. He himself should have been gone, but he was here, and so was everything else.  


Why?

He looked around the room again. There was a small window that let in the barest amount of sunlight, and it gave the room just enough illumination so that he could see everything - not that he really wanted to, but he certainly could. At the end of the room was a doorway without a door that led in to what was technically called a living room, but was not the site of a whole lot of living, not even when he had lived there. He got up and walked in; there was his couch, and a table in front of it with a wobbly leg that he had never bothered to get fixed. He could have fixed it himself, really, but he had never wanted to put forth any effort.

He left that room and walked in to the kitchen. There was his fridge; he opened it, and there was food inside, fresh food, albeit not a whole lot of it. So this had to be the past, unless he was somehow occupying the house while another person lived in it.

No, that couldn't be, because those were his bed sheets, and that was his ridiculous picture of lilacs. Everything was definitely his.

He shrugged and looked around the kitchen again; yep, that was his coffee maker. And his microwave. And all the boring, pretty much unhealthy food that he bought for himself. There was a phone, of course, because he couldn't stay totally disconnected from the rest of the world. Next to it was a small yellow notepad with some nearly unintelligible scribbles on it; he walked over to inspect it.

 _"555-431-9204 some bank guy?? probably important"_

 _"camera guy will have it by Tuesday"_

 _"555-401-3457 dr k"_

_"call mom!! she is worried about my health"_

His health? Hmm. He hadn't remembered being incredibly unhealthy while he was living here, although judging by the food that surrounded him he couldn't have lived an especially healthy lifestyle. Maybe he would call her and attempt to act casual; it would be nice to hear the voice of someone he recognized.

He dialed her number, and she picked up after three rings.

"Hello?"  


"Hi, Mom?"

"Rick!" She sounded relieved. "I was hoping you would call me. I've been worried about you."  


"Why?" Maybe this conversation would be easy.

"You know why, don't act sarcastic with me." Or maybe not. "Did you call the doctor?"  


The doctor... he looked down at the notepad again. Was it the third note? Probably. "Uh, no. I was going to, though."  


"You need to get on that. I don't want to have to do it for you."  


"Yeah, I know, Mom." He didn't know, but somehow he doubted he would have even if he had a vague understanding of what was going on in his life.

He heard her sigh. "I'm sorry. It just worried me, what happened on Thursday. I don't like to see you neglecting taking care of yourself."  


"I'm sorry, really, I am." What on Earth had happened? "I'll... be good to myself in future."  


"I hope so. Well, you get on with that call, and call me later, all right?"  


"All right."  


"Okay, sweetie. Talk to you later."  


"Bye." He hung up. Well, that was strange.

He walked out of the room to the bathroom - maybe he could splash his face with water to attempt to wake himself up, because this had to be a horrible nightmare. When he got there, though, all he could do was stare blankly at the mirror.

"What?" he said again.

It was him in the mirror, all right, but he was younger. He wasn't too much younger, of course, but somehow he could tell that he was - his face was a tad rounder, maybe. He had obviously forgotten to shave in a while, because he had gone a few stages past stubble and looked somewhat unruly. Gross, really. He had had stubble last night, though - he remembered, because Adam had noticed it, and he always loved when he had stubble.

"I'm..." He paused. "What, twenty-three? Ew."

He was twenty-six, definitely twenty-six, because he had just celebrated his birthday that month. What was this? Why had he de-aged? Great, another bizarre problem to solve.

"You," he said, pointing at the mirror, "are a big slob. Get a boyfriend." He wrinkled his nose. "Actually, I'd prefer a husband, but they seem to be unavailable at the moment."

He was already missing Adam. That was sure to become less and less fun as time went on. But what was he supposed to do? He couldn't even figure out why he was there in the first place, much less figure out why he was suddenly a few years younger, and much lesser figure out where the heck Adam had gone.

He must have time traveled somehow in his sleep, which was plenty strange on its own. How the heck could he have done that? It wasn't possible, was it? Maybe it was all just a very vivid dream. In any case, nothing about this was familiar, and thus he had no clue how to fix it at all.

And that hurt. He always had to try to find a way to solve his problems, to fix his issues, because that was his nature. Anything and everything that was even mildly bugging him had to be fixed and put in its rightful place, whatever that was. The fact that he was faced with an unsolvable problem was aggravating and frustrating at the very least.

He sat down on the couch; it was in need of fixing, too, or at the most cleaning. Everything was a mess, an abandoned, unkempt, uncared for mess, and so was he. Fitting.

He groaned; this was horrible. "I need to get out of here."

No one responded, because he was totally alone.


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of the day was spent in a quite dull, unforgettable manner. He didn't end up calling his doctor, because he had no clue what on Earth he was supposed to discuss, and he barely remembered who his doctor was anyway. Might have been female. Dr. K.... yeah, the name didn't trigger any sort of memory.

What did he do, then? Sit around. The couch was fairly uncomfortable; he must have been used to it when he actually lived here, but he couldn't imagine how long that would have taken. He didn't have a TV, because they were out of his budget and he didn't want one anyway, but he had a couple books, and he ended up reading about a hundred pages of one. It was about submarines, and he was pretty sure he had given it to Adam when he had moved in with him. It was fairly interesting, and certainly the most engaging form of distraction that was presented to him. He hadn't read many books in a while, too, so that felt pretty refreshing.

Other than that, though, his day wasn't much to speak of. No wonder he had been so melancholy before he met Adam; there was nothing of interest around him, nothing with any sort of personality to it. He supposed he must have been preoccupied with his photography; he had to sell prints, after all, and it was a good excuse to get out of this miserable place he called a house. He would have done that then, except for the fact that he couldn't find his camera. Must have been hidden away somewhere.

It was strange how much he couldn't remember about being three years younger. It hadn't been that long ago, right? Yet it seemed like an eternity. He didn't remember his house, he didn't remember his doctor, he didn't remember where his camera was - it was like he had blocked out every memory of living here. He didn't blame himself for that, though. He didn't want to remember this; there was nothing worth remembering, especially compared to the life he lived with Adam.

Adam... he frowned. Every time he thought of him, he felt a strange, sad pang in his chest, and due to the lack of distractions around him, it was hard to shake. Where had he gone? He couldn't have followed him here, obviously, and he couldn't be here already, because they didn't know each other when he was twenty-three. He missed him, though. As much as he loved him, he tended to take his existence around him for granted, because now that the wars were over there was no threat to cause him to leave or disappear. Now, though, he had been taken from him, and he was gone, and he had no clue whether he might even see him again, much less when.

The thought of that made him feel sick, so he went back to his book.

After a while, the sky outside began to grow dark, and he began to feel tired, so he went to bed; there was no use in staying awake. His bed was uncomfortable, too, and cold, and he hated it, but after a while he eventually went to sleep.

 

 

-

He woke up the next day, and he wasn't in his old house, but he wasn't in his and Adam's house, either. He was in an even older house of his, and when he looked around he immediately groaned under his breath. This was worse, actually worse - he was in the house he grew up in, and judging by the decal and array of clothes around his room he was a teenager.

A _teenager._ What had he done to deserve this? What had he done to deserve any of this? This was hell; this had to be hell. He had died somehow, and he was going through a different level of hell until he eventually began to suffer eternally.

He had been woken up by an alarm clock, and it was still beeping; he turned it off and sat up and rubbed his eyes. An alarm clock... that could only mean one thing...

His eyes widened. School.

"Rick, get up, you're going to be late," he heard his mom call. He groaned again, louder this time. No. He couldn't do this. He couldn't.

He had to anyway. He got up out of bed, put on his glasses (those horrible ones he had worn when he was younger, oh God), pulled on some clothes (definitely ones he had worn as a teenager, oh God), and walked in to the bathroom, and almost screamed.

Yep, he was a teenager. Again. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

"I look awful," was the first thing he said. He stared at his reflection with disgust. "Really stupid looking and awful. What the..." He shook his head.

"You," he said to his reflection, "are the cause of all my pain. I thought you were dead." (He said this quietly of course; if his mom heard him say this there would be much confusion.) "Dead. Gone forever. I was a happy adult, and now I'm not. You suck."  
Well, that was a lovely way to start a morning.

-

The first thing he had to do was decipher exactly how old he was. This was back when ages were important, obviously, and since he had to go to school he had to know what grade he was in. This dilemma was solved by looking at a calendar - October 2005 .

"No," he said under his breath. "No."  
Not this year. Anything but this year. This was definitely hell.

"What day is it?" he asked his mom. At least that was a valid question.

"The 22nd."

He looked at the calendar again; a Monday. Great, as if it couldn't get any worse.

He had breakfast (some toaster waffles, always a great source of nutrition), grabbed his - ughhhh - backpack, and headed out the door, because he had to catch the bus. This was getting worse by the second.

"When I see Adam again," he said to himself, " _when_ I see him, I'm gonna kiss him to death. Yeah. That's nice."  
It was the only thing that was nice, really, imagining seeing Adam again. That would have to happen eventually.

When the bus came, he was forced to get on it, and forced to take a seat, and forced to stare out the window as it rolled along the roads. The only good thing was that he was alone; there weren't quite as many people on the bus as there were in the afternoons, he remembered, and thus there was only a small pool of people that could sit by him, and none of them did. Thank the heavens.

After a long, boring, uncomfortable, and bumpy bus ride, he arrived at school. For some bizarre reason, he seemed to remember more about this time than when he was twenty-three. Maybe because everything was on such a strict schedule. The actual classes started at eight, he remembered, and his first one was... what, English?

English. He had liked English, he remembered. His teacher had been nice, albeit quite a giver of homework. This was Monday, so he couldn't have had any, thank God. He didn't know what he would have done if he had had it.

The bell rang. Well, there it was. Time to engage himself in pure torture.

Maybe it was muscle memory, but somehow he remembered where to walk. He got there in no time, and there it was. Exactly as he remembered.

Horrible.

-

It wasn't that bad, really. All they did was talk about some book he couldn't remember a single detail of, and while that was confusing, he never had to talk. He doubted he ever really engaged in discussions anyway; he was a shy boy through and through.

So that was all right for the most part. He did have homework, though, which he hopefully would never have to do. That was if this apparent pattern of going to sleep and waking up somewhere else held up, anyway.

That was still possibly the worst thing he could imagine, but what could he do? Die and hopefully be revived with Adam? It wasn't worth the risk.

His next class was algebra (death incarnate), and he hated every second of it - no, loathed - no, what was a stronger word than loathed? Absolutely and totally despised it with every fiber of his brain and body. Yeah, that worked.

They were learning something that made no sense to him. Something with x's and something with y's, that was all he knew. Equations, maybe. He had taken this class again, and again, and in college too - different forms of algebra, and none of them were any help to him whatsoever. He had been over those, though, and it had been gone forever. Those wonderful days of adulthood.

That was over soon, though, and then there was a break. He sat down at a bench that was partly in the sun, partly in the shade of a tree behind him, and he just sat. And sat. And waited. His mom had packed him an apple, and he ate that, but after that there was nothing but waiting.

Mondays weren't that bad. He didn't have all of his classes, only four. So what was next? English... then math... then...

His eyes widened. Oh, no. Oh, God, please no.

Biology.

-

If algebra was death incarnate, this was all the worst forms of suffering put together, and directly showered down upon him. This wasn't just bad, this was awkward. And the opposite of fun. And horrible in every way, and he hated it, and...

He sat down at his desk. He remembered this desk very well, as most of his memories of biology came from the perspective of him sitting down at it. It was in the back row, because of his last name, which he had always appreciated. Sitting at the front was never an experience he appreciated.

He sat and stared at his desk. There were markings on it from students who had sat at this desk before him, and in other classes. Sometimes there were just lines, but occasionally there were messages. He peered at one and immediately grimaced at its vulgarity.

Soon enough, everyone had filed in and sat down. He looked around; there were faces he vaguely remembered. There was a girl named Jessica, who had always been at least amiable with him (she was a year younger than him, though, so he never interacted with her outside of that class), and another girl, her friend, named Kaitlyn, who had always looked at him as if he had a disease. Nice.

And there were other boys he tended to ignore... and other girls, too.. and, right where he remembered, _him._

He gulped. Oh, no.

"Good morning, good morning..." Oh, his teacher. No, bad morning.

He stared at the back of the boy's head, as he always did, in every single class period. This time, though, he was staring in bewilderment. Was that really him? Was he really here?

This really did have to be a nightmare.

His hair was just as luscious as he remembered. Dark brown, didn't look greasy at all - his did, he had looked at it that morning. Cut slightly above his neck, but not such in a way that it looked ridiculous. He was slightly slouching in his chair, but weren't they all? He was probably slouching more.

He was. He sat up.

What was his name? Oh God, oh God. Something with a J, maybe. A consonant. Not like Adam, that was a vowel. What?

Adam. He felt like he was cheating on him, and he blushed. Bad, bad him.

He was a teenager, though, and Adam wasn't there, and that boy was. Adam wouldn't blame him for at least looking at him, right? Adam didn't even know about this.

Adam... no, he couldn't think about him. Not now. Nope.

That boy. What was his name? Nice Hair? Yeah, that's what he should call him.

His teacher was talking about something. DNA. Yeah, that thing that was in everyone. That thing that no one in the world exactly shared, not even identical twins. Not even him and Adam.

That was weird to think about sometimes. Even though it was completely obvious, it was easy to forget that they were not in fact the same person, especially since they were married...

Oh, yeah. Married. Apart from his teacher, he was the only married person in the room. A married teenager, a fifteen year old who had had sex so many times he couldn't even remember how many times it was. Well, maybe that wasn't _that_ unusual for a teenager.

It was for him, though. The closest thing he had had to a relationship was this ridiculous boy in front of him. Nice Hair. And that wasn't even a relationship; it was a very strong, unrequited crush on his part, and he never even saw the guy outside of this class.

Married... he wasn't wearing a wedding ring, or any ring at all. He hadn't signed a marriage license yet, and he was too young to do so anyway. And his husband wasn't even there. What was this?

Hell. It was hell. He was stuck here, learning about DNA, and the love of his life wasn't there. Boring.

He wondered how Adam was doing, wherever

he was. Did he miss him? Probably. Did he even know he was gone? Well, maybe not. It could be a thing where it was only him going through this, and nothing was happening on Adam's side. Or maybe Adam was going through this too, somewhere.

Adam, Adam, Adam... He was supposed to be taking notes, and he was doing so halfheartedly, but he wrote Adam's name down instead. He put a heart by it, too. He was a love struck teenager, but for a different guy this time around.

He erased his name. Didn't want anyone to see it; that would be very bad indeed.

DNA. Deoxyribonucleic acid. What did that even mean? Was it really an acid? Well, it had to have been.

Everyone began to stand up, and he blinked. What was this?

The boy, that stupid boy, Nice Hair, was walking towards him. Crap. He had forgotten what his face looked like; it wasn't that bad. He had good taste. Adam was far more attractive, though. This guy didn't have much of a nose to speak of, and Adam's was cute. He kissed it often.

"So, what are we doing today?" He had a nice voice, too. Personable and oddly soothing. Adam's was nicer.

He wondered how this guy was in bed. He probably sucked. Adam was great, and sucked in a different way -

Oh, come on, Rick.

"Uh, I don't know." He was useless. He didn't even know what the heck they were doing. "What are we doing?"

He peered at him. "The same project?"

"Oh. I, uh, kind of dozed off." Yeah, by thinking of the husband he didn't currently have. No wonder he barely passed this class.

"That's all right, I guess. It's just the same stuff."

He blinked. The same stuff. That cleared up nothing.

"DNA?" he murmured. Stupid guess.

"Well, yeah. Are you feeling all right?"  
"No."  
"Oh. Do you need to go to the nurse?"  
He remembered why he liked this guy now. It wasn't because of his hair, although that was certainly a contributing factor. He actually treated him like a person.

"No, I'll be fine. I'm just tired." He yawned, almost as if on cue.

"Oh. Okay." He left, probably to go get their stupid project, and he stared at his desk again. He wasn't that great. Adam was greater in every way.

-

Their project basically amounted to pasting strips of paper together. It wasn't that exciting, but at least it wasn't something that took a lot of focus and concentration.

"I don't see how this is teaching us anything," he said as he glued yet another strip. That was how he felt about all of high school, really; he hadn't learned anything that really inspired him at all, or sunk in, or made any sort of impact on him whatsoever.

The boy shrugged. "It's school."  
Good answer.

How long was this class going to take? Each one was an hour and fifteen minutes; he checked the clock. Half an hour to go, ugh.

How had he ever survived high school? This was terrible. He didn't like anyone, and no one liked him, and he hated the classes, and he hated waking up early, and he hated the schedule, and he hated being forced around every second...

Hopefully tomorrow he would be an adult again. Hopefully.

-

Next was lunch, which was about as eventful as the break earlier. He still had most of the lunch his mom had packed him, so he ate that, and then, with twenty more minutes to kill, he went to the library. Having spent a great deal of his four years of school there, he recalled exactly where it was, and walked to it in a jiffy.

As he walked in, he stared around at everything. It was exactly how he remembered it all, which was still strange despite the constant onset of memories he had been bombarded with throughout the day. The books were over there, and the tables and chairs were over there, and the computers were over there...

Computers. It was 2001. Over the past decade and a half, computers had changed tremendously, so he wondered what these ones were like. He looked at the ones the school provided and cringed; they looked seriously outdated, almost scarily so. What a reminder that he had been transported back in to the past.

"I think I'll pass on those," he mumbled to himself. Maybe he would find that submarine book again.

He did, having remembered the author, and he sat down at one of the chairs and found where he had abandoned it the day before (for him). It was pretty interesting; he would have to steal it back from Adam if he remembered to do so. Or if he ever came back to him at all.

He would. He would.

-

After lunch was his history class, which he actually enjoyed. He had always been fascinated by history, but had never taken that interest to greater depths than high school. Too bad. He might have been good at it.

He didn't interact with anyone, of course, or answer any questions. That was too bold even for him; even for the guy who had once exploded an actual space cruiser out rage. No, talking in class was a death wish.

Maybe if he were more comfortable in school he would speak up. He seemed to remember having answered questions at least a few times in this class; maybe it had interested him that much. Huh.

School was weird.

-

"So, how was school?"  
Painful, he wanted to say. But instead, he said, "It was all right. Math was terrible. History wasn't bad."  
"That's nice." She meant it, too. Good old Mom.

There wasn't much to do for the rest of the day. He had some old video games, which he discovered with delight, and played those for a couple hours until he began to get a bit of a headache. Then was dinner, and then a couple hours until bed.

For the first time in probably all his years of teenhood, he actually wanted to go to bed. If it meant getting away from this hole of hell, it would be a miracle. He looked over his homework a bit, decided not to do it, pretended that he had anyway, brushed his teeth, and got in bed.

He stared up at his ceiling. It was a ceiling he had stared up at for many, many years, and it was all too familiar. Where had all this gone? This had been his life, and it was strange, but it was his. Weird.

He eventually drifted off to sleep. Tomorrow would be another, unexpected day, and although it was slightly terrifying, he couldn't wait for it to come.

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning he was relieved to find that he was back in his own house, in his own bed, with nothing apparently having been changed. That didn't necessarily mean nothing had changed, though; maybe he was too cautious, but somehow he didn't feel the need to jump to conclusions. There wasn't anything to suggest that this pattern of waking up in a different time and place was at an end; just because he was back in his house didn't mean everything was over.

This suspicion was confirmed when he went in to the bathroom and looked in to the mirror. The opposite of what had occurred yesterday was occurring today; he appeared to have aged, not a _whole_ lot but not a little bit either. Oddly enough, he wasn't too shocked when he saw himself. Maybe the tremendous shocks of seeing himself in the past couple days had dulled it.

Anyway, he was older. How much older? If he had to guess, maybe a decade or two. So this was in the future. Huh.

The future didn't seem that different. Several items around him were in different spots than what he remembered, but that was understandable. Largely, though, everything was still here. They even had the same brand of toothpaste. He looked back at the bed; same sheets, yeah. Maybe it wasn't too far in to the future.

He did look older, though, so it couldn't have been less than several years. He supposed he and Adam were men of tradition.

Where was Adam? He hadn't been with him when he had awoken; still, though, he had checked the clock, and it was half past ten. He could very well be awake somewhere.

Adam... the fact that he could very well see him again made him feel a lot happier than he had been since this whole thing had started. It had been two days of his nonexistence, and he was aching to see him again - just to see him. Would he have aged too? Yes. More than him. Still beautiful, though, probably.

He smiled. Maybe this would be okay.

He looked himself in the mirror one last time and walked down the hallway. He glanced down; his pajamas were new, or at least new to him. He liked them; they were a dark green, and were quite soft. Maybe he could bring them with him.

He bumped in to someone, and yelled "OW."

"Hey, watch where you're going, will you?"  


He looked up, slightly squinting. "Adam."

Adam was there. Adam. Yes, older, yes, definitely, but still Adam. "Morning, sleepy head."  


"It's not that late." He rubbed his head; it hurt. "Ow."

"Seriously, what were you doing? Contemplating your feet?"

"Yeah, I was thinking about how I'm gonna kick you with them." Boy, this felt good. Much better than the previous two days. "Like, now."

Adam's eyes widened. "I guess I'd better move, then." He turned around and started walking away; he quickly followed him. "I was gonna wake you up, anyway, so it's okay."

"It's not even that late."  


"Yeah, but I was bored. And lonely." They sat down on the couch; that couch that had been there all this time. He was glad to see it still remained. "I can miss you if I want."  


"You _want_ to miss me?"  


"Well... I don't know." He stood up again. "Sorry. I'll make you coffee."

"You're being awfully nice to me today."

"I don't know why I shouldn't." He winked and walked to the kitchen.

He stared at him. What was up with him? Maybe they had grown even more attached over the years? That was weird. Well, they were weird.

And Adam did look older, older than him, but that was understandable, because he was. He had been right, though; he did still look beautiful. Maybe not quite as youthful, but still gorgeous to him. Ah.

A good future was ahead of him, he guessed. That was something to keep his hopes up.

Adam came back with a cup of coffee in hand, and he gave it to him. He sipped it; perfect temperature, but could use a bit more creamer. Eh, he wouldn't bother him with that.

"So, did you guess what day it is yet?"  


He squinted at him. "I'm bad with dates."

"No, you're not. More coffee."  


"Is it Drug Rick Day?"  


"I didn't _drug_ you."  


"Sure you didn't." He took another sip anyway. Truth be told, he had absolutely no idea what day it was. Should he know? Judging by the way Adam was acting, he should. Oh dear.

"Is it... Free Coffee Day?"  


"Yeah, like I'm gonna charge you. Drink up."  


"Why?"  


"'Cause you're not awake yet."  


"Oh." He was, but he supposed he did act a bit sleep deprived. He was, after all, quite confused by literally everything that was going on in his life.

"Bri called, actually," said Adam, apparently changing the subject. "Real early, while you were sleeping."  


Who the heck was Bri? "What did she say?"

"Man, you must really be tired. But... you need to guess."  


He hated when he was like this. All secretive and sneaky. Smug, too. He would have punched him in the face if he weren't so in love with him.

"Anyway, she called before her class. So she's already more of a better person than we are, although I think we already knew that."  


"Yeah." He had no idea what to say to that. More coffee. "Can I go back to bed?"  


"It's almost eleven."  


"So? Some people sleep during the day."  


"Some people sleep during the night and then are awake during the day. You're one of those people."  


"Am I?"  


"Well, usually. Maybe not today."  


"So I can go back to bed?"  


"No. Did you know Bri's thinking of taking French?"  


"Is she?"  


"Yeah. I told her maybe you could help her out, 'cause you know a little."  


"I barely remember any." He didn't, that wasn't a lie, but he still had no idea who this Bri was. And why would he teach her French?

"I bet you still know some. She doesn't really know any."  


"Oh." He was almost regretting waking up in this time. He had no idea what was going on, what day it was, and who anyone was, and he was supposed to know all of these things and not even think twice about them.

"When is that caffeine gonna kick in?"  


He groaned. "I don't know. Kiss me."  


"Ahh, you got it." He leaned in and kissed him, and... somehow it felt different. Not in a bad way, but still different. Softer, maybe. He liked it. Was this his future? Better kisses?  


Maybe.

They broke apart and he looked out the window to do some lightning quick deductions. Very sunny, so it wasn't fall or winter, but everything looked too green to be summer... so, spring? What happened in spring? And why was Adam so pleased when he offered to kiss him?

And then it hit him. _Oh._ Must be their anniversary.

"It only took you, like, ten minutes," said Adam. " _Anyway,_ Bri said happy anniversary. Isn't she sweet?"  


"Extremely." That was the next hurdle to, well, push over. Find out whoever Bri was.

"She remembered faster than you did. And it was early in the morning, not two thirty or whatever time it is now."  


"Well, maybe she's just smarter than me."  


"Must be that college atmosphere. They've got all those brainiacs. Too bad we never really did it."  


"I did." More coffee.

"Not like her."  


"Well, isn't she just the dang greatest."

"Come on, I'm more of a dad than you are."

Dad? A dad? Oh, _crap._

They were dads. Bri must be their kid... oh, man, things _had_ changed.

Dad? He was a dad. That was weird. He was suddenly a dad. And he had a kid in college? How old was he?

Old. Oh, no.

"Nah," he said. "You can't beat me." He figured that was something he might say. This was so hard... at least in the past he knew what kind of person he was supposed to be, and how to behave. This, though? This was pure acting.

"Always have to be so superior, don't you?" He was joking; at least he could tell that. "All right, drink your coffee." He got up and left, and he watched him go.

Hm. This was different. He was a dad... a dad. Weird. He could get used to that, though. Having a kid with Adam, yeah, that wasn't such a bad idea. He wasn't quite sure how that had happened, though.

Oh well. It would happen. He - they - would figure it out.

The future. It didn't seem that strange after all. He was still with Adam, in that same house, and they were still as happy as ever. They had a kid, though - Bri? Must be a daughter. Huh. He would like a daughter very much.

He wondered if he would remember all this, once it were all over. Would he remember being a dad of a daughter (he had never actually seen)? Would he remember her name? Would he remember how Adam looked like? Maybe, maybe not. He still wasn't sure why he was even there in the first place. Did he have to relay a message, or something? Was this some sort of _It's A Wonderful Life_ thing where he had to look over his life and think about how magnificent it was?  


He drank his coffee; it had begun to cool down, and wasn't quite as tasty. He set it down and gazed at the empty space where Adam had been a few minutes before. It was their anniversary...

What year was it? It must have been a couple decades if they had a daughter in college... so, the late 2030s? Maybe even 2040s? The thought of that gave him chills.

So far in to the future... it didn't seem that bad when he was just with Adam, living their lives as they always had, but to think about the actual date was freaky. Which number anniversary was this?

It obviously must have been far enough so that anniversaries no longer meant quite as much to them. They had gone on vacation for the first one, because they felt the need to celebrate in an extravagant way, but obviously the novelty had to wear off after some years. And it had to have been a while for them.

There had to be a calendar somewhere... in the room Adam kept his computers and most of his musical instruments, maybe. He had everything in there.

He stood up and walked out of the room, down the hallway until he reached the room. There was the faint sound of music emanating from it, and as he opened the door it grew louder. Adam was sitting at one of the computers, staring up at it. They had upgraded; it looked pretty high tech, and he would have wanted to look at it if he weren't supposed to be immune to all the greatness around him.

"Hey," said Adam, not looking up or turning around.

"Hey," he replied, and he looked around for a calendar. There it was... April 2039. Wow.

The future... it was so weird he could barely even comprehend it. He had to, though, if he didn't want to raise any suspicions. Adam was a smart guy, too, and he knew him extremely well; it wasn't at all like lying to his mom, or to anyone else, really.

"Check this out," said Adam, and he swiveled his chair around to look at him. He walked forward. "I think I invented a new audio effect."

"You what?"

"Like, I don't know. Maybe it was just this dumb program messing up. But I was trying to get rid of some of the esses, you know how I always make 'em really sharp and stuff and I have to fix them? And I went too far and accidentally removed too much, but I didn't remove enough so that the vocals are _all_ gone... anyway, listen to this."

He played whatever was on his computer, and a strange noise came from it; it wasn't exactly singing, but it sounded oddly trance - like. It was weird, and all he could do was stare in bemusement at the computer.

Adam paused it. "See? Isn't that weird? I'm gonna change it, obviously, but I thought it sounded crazy."  


"It sounded like a cat being murdered," he said.

"Gee, thanks for the uplifting thought. Anyway, why are you in here?"  


"I can't just come and see you?"  


"Well, you can, but I thought you had gotten bored of all this."  


"It's our anniversary."

"Yeah, good point." He stood up and, to his surprise, gave him a quick hug. "Happy twenty-three years."

He hugged him tighter; he still hadn't fully recovered from being mysteriously away from him for two days. "Man, that's so crazy."  


"Isn't it? When I woke up this morning all I could think about was what a big number that is. Although, when we're really older it'll be like, sixty, and that'll be nothing."  


"Do you think we can do it?"  


"Uh, heck yeah. We're almost halfway there."

They let go. "Not almost."  


"Well, getting there." He smiled at him.

He smiled back; maybe this wasn't so crazy after all. "Are we doing anything later?"  


"Maybe."  


"Maybe? It's already getting late."  


"Yeah, 'cause you spent all that time sleeping." He sat back down again. "What do you think I should call this? Attack of the Evil Ravenous Death Bunnies From Outer Space?"

"Catchy. Isn't that a book?"  


"Maybe. Something else, then. Attack of the Nice Mice from... Nice?"  


"That's a place?"  


"Yeah, France."  


"Oh." He shook his head. "Weirdo."  


"Excuse me? It's our anniversary."  


"So? You're still a weirdo."  


"Oh, whatever." He didn't sound too offended.

-

So, all in all, it wasn't that bad of a day. They didn't do much for the rest of the afternoon, and in the evening they had a quick dinner and mostly talked to each other about how weird it was that it was their anniversary yet again.

"Like, I know I should be used to it by now, but we got married twenty-three years ago. That's pretty dang long."

"Longer than most people," he said.

"Yeah, true, but it's still weird to think about. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but it was. And then you think about Bri, and how she's in college..." His voice trailed off and he shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe I am getting old."

"Nah. You're good."

"Oh, yeah? I'm still twenty-nine?"

"Uh huh. Fresh as ever."  


"Oh, you bet."

He wasn't quite sure what that meant.

Later, it was night time again. He was almost sad to go to sleep; it had been such a nice day, albeit a little confusing, but that was enough to see Adam again. It was reassuring to know that he still loved him just as much as he did in his own time - anything could have happened in twenty-two years, really. Well, a daughter happened. He still wasn't over that.

What was to come next? Would Adam be there, or would he be on his own again? Would it be the future, the past, or somewhere in between? And when would he be done with all this? All were questions that he had no clue how to even begin to answer.

"So," said Adam. "Remember earlier when I said _maybe_ we were gonna do something?"

"Wow, pretty subtle there." He kind of figured this was going to happen. It was their anniversary, after all; it made perfect sense for them to have sex.

"Hey, I thought that was a good transition. Very mysterious."  


"It wasn't mysterious at all."  


"Maybe you're just boring. You lack the element of surprise."  


"Maybe I'm used to you being dumb."

"Maybe you need to shh." He held out his index finger and pressed it against his lips. "Shhhh."  


He grabbed it and pulled him away. "You shh."

"No, you."

It was also refreshing to see that they were still as unbearably immature after twenty-two years.

"I can make you shh."

"You can?"

"Uh huuuuh." He dragged that last syllable out. Maybe he really was crazy.

"Do it, then."

Adam complied, and kissed him. It was just as soft as the one before, but now he applied more pressure, and it felt more passionate. Much better; he had time to perfect his kisses, maybe. Probably. He kissed back, and maybe he wasn't quite as good as Adam, but he didn't seem to mind at all. Of course he didn't.

Adam broke off. "Your lips are chapped."  


"What?"  


"They are. You need to drink more water."  


Oh, Adam. He never, ever changed.

"Wow, sorry. Should I go do that now?"  


"Nope. Stay here." He kissed him again, and pushed him over so that he was on his back. He didn't have to act this one out, no.

Adam pressed kisses down his neck, and hummed softly. "So. Anniversary."  


He was talking too much. "Yes. Anniversary."  


"We should have more of them."  


"I thought you said that was freaking you out."  


"I like having an excuse to have sex with you."  


"You don't need an excuse."

"Mm, sometimes."  


"No."

"Okaaay. Take off your shirt."

He almost liked this Adam more than the younger Adam. He was more blunt with what he wanted. Whichever version of him that was supposed to be here probably was, too. Must have known each other very, very well. They _had_ been married for twenty-three years...

Anyway, he took off his shirt, and so did Adam. At least that was familiar, too. No surprises. And their pants, too, no surprises there either. Adam would never be a surprise.

-

Some time later, it was over, and they were cuddling. That was familiar, too; God knows how many times he had done that with his Adam, and that was only after just over a year of marriage.

"Happy happy anniversary," said Adam.

"We didn't celebrate it much, did we?"

"You don't call this a celebration?" He kissed his neck again. "I think it's enough." He paused. "Remember when it used to be a really big thing?" That was a bit of a guess, but surely their trend with celebrating anniversaries in a rather large way would continue past the first one.

"Remember when we went to the ocean... for a week..."

"That was fun."  


"Mm, remember when we had sex in a hotel?"  


"Which time?"  


"On our _honeymoon,_ dummie."

"Oh, yes." He did, actually. That had been nice. Kind of like right now, actually.

"Honeymoon... that was twenty-three years ago, too." He kissed his neck again, and again. Hadn't he had enough of kissing him that night? No, he was Adam. He never got tired of kissing him, and he never would.

"Don't say that." It was only a year ago for him, but of course he couldn't tell Adam that. He would have said his reply even if it had been that long, though.

"I know, it's weird." He pressed his face in to his shoulder, even though he knew he must have been sweaty. "Here's to twenty-three more."

He smiled. "Yeah." And here's to another day that was as great as this one, hopefully.

Hopefully. Wherever and whenever he ended up.


	4. Chapter 4

The very second he woke up, he knew that this day wouldn't be even close to being as great as the day before. It wasn't just because he immediately noticed Adam wasn't there, although that certainly was a contributing factor. It was because he also immediately noticed that he was small again - smaller than he had been two days before, even.

Quite small. A literal kid. He stretched out his arm in front of him - yeah, that wasn't his arm. It was his, but it was his arm when he was much, much younger. How old was he? Seven?

He had had a calendar when he was younger, and he had gotten rid of it after a few room remodels - he had never bothered to look at it, and at the time had found it utterly useless. Now, though, it was extremely useful to him, and his eyes instantly directed themselves towards it. September 1999, what?

It wasn't even the same millennium.

So he had to have been a grand total of... nine years old. He groaned. This was the opposite of what he had wanted.

He closed his eyes again and let his head fall back on to his pillow. What had he done to deserve this now? Have sex with his husband? Maybe the gods of the universe didn't appreciate love. Ha. Well, screw them too.

He couldn't decide if this was worse or better than being fifteen. Probably better, seeing as that one kid wasn't around, but he couldn't be too sure. Would he have to go to school again, but as a... fourth grader? That would be the biggest hell he could imagine.

Well, his mom hadn't woken him up, so it had to be the weekend. Hmm. What had he done as a kid?

He opened his eyes again. Watched cartoons, that was what he did. Somehow, though, this time around he didn't feel much in the mood for that. Too depressed.

So if he wasn't going to act like a kid, he was going to act like an adult. Maybe he would go back to sleep again. He almost wanted to, but the thoughts occupying his mind were dreadful and full of misery. The main one was a continuing, multi-step plan to find the nearest cliff and jump off of it.

No, he couldn't do that. Not for Adam, if he were to ever see him again.

For not the first time, he wondered what he was doing now. Did he miss him, or know that he was gone at all? Was he looking for him if he did? Was he living his own life if he didn't? Every option was as horrible as the last. All of them involved Adam being an incredible distance away from him, not only in space but also in time, and it was nerve wracking. Was he okay? Was he safe? He had to have been safe.

What had Adam been like as a nine year old? Well, if the rest of their lives were largely the same, this had to be, too. He was probably shy and quiet, just like him, and he probably kept to himself, just like him, and he probably had no clue what direction to go in life. Just like him, both back then and presently.

He wished he were here, so badly. Even if he were a nine year old. That would be pretty fun, really; they could be kids together, but also be a couple. Young love, very much so.

He laughed at that. That was the first time he had felt any sense of enjoyment since he woke up.

Adam had to be fine, wherever he was. Maybe this was nothing. Maybe this was just a terrible nightmare, an all too real one. Maybe, no, probably, everything would go back to normal whenever whomever controlled his destiny decided to let him free. That would be possibly the most enriching moment of his life.

Well, if he was going to stay here, he should occupy himself. What was around him? It had been so long...

He had always thought of himself as an atypical kid, always doing things seemingly in a different manner than everyone else around him. Really, though, he wasn't that different. He liked cars, so he had a couple posters on his walls, and he liked video games, so he had some of those lying around, discarded when they had angered them with their combined complexity and stupidity. Those were the days, back when his only real problems were virtual.

Or was this virtual? ...No. Not going to think about that.

There were dirty clothes lying around, too, probably only there to irritate his mom. There were shoes, and books from school and for leisure, and objects galore that he had abandoned once he aged or moved out. Huh.

He didn't have that many things in his possession when he bought his own house, as had been demonstrated when he was forced to return to that time. With Adam, he had basically nothing, save for clothes (not as obligatory as could be thought) and his camera accessories (very obligatory), along with items kept for sentimental purposes (pictures and the like). He wasn't too big on material items, really; after all, there was a whole world around him that was much better than any object, and he had Adam around to provide him all sorts of entertainment and distraction. Life was good without them, too.

Or at least, life had been good, back when he was actually living it and not reliving it. He sighed; this wasn't going to be fun at all.

So, he was nine. Actually nine years old, not even a decade in to existence. What had life been like? Simpler, probably. School had to have been simpler in many ways, from homework to crushes. He hadn't even had crushes when he was nine; he had been too impressed by the magic of books and video games. Mostly video games.

He played video games with Adam sometimes. Adam almost always won, and he was never too sure whether he was just better than him or older than him, or if he let him win because he was so in love with him. Probably a mixture of all three.

He wished he could do that now. Just get Adam over here and play those games with him, no matter what age they were. It was so much more fun with someone else; on his own, it had been satisfying, but then again, he hadn't known, and he wouldn't know for a long, long time.

He needed to stop thinking so much about Adam. What was the point, anyway? It just made him melancholic and nostalgic. And it made him miss him more, which wasn't the least bit fun. Somehow he couldn't stop, though; every little thing made him think of him. Adam had probably lived a life almost exactly like this, in a room almost exactly like this, in the exact same year.

There was no escaping him, really. When they were both together it was surprisingly easy to forget that they were such different people, as he could look at him and talk to him and engage with him, and forget who he was himself, because he could think about Adam all he wanted. When they were apart, though, his mind inevitably wandered to him, and then all their similarities and differences came crashing down on him, because Adam wasn't there.

Nope. Not there. He would have to do this all himself... again. How great.

He honestly had wished for a day as great as the last one, last night when he and Adam had been together and everything was warm and happy. He supposed that was too great of a wish, though, too much of a good thing. Maybe it was better; if he lived multiple good days in a row, when a bad one finally came around it would hurt even more. This was just a small, stupid let-down.

He had lived multiple good days in a row, though, back when he had been with Adam. And that brought it all back to the ultimate question: what on Earth had he done to have this happen to him?

-

He got up eventually, when he finally decided that thinking about how depressed he was that Adam wasn't there was driving him insane. The first person he spoke to was his mom, as was the continuing pattern for these days without Adam.

"Hi, honey, how'd you sleep?"  
Well, that was a question he couldn't entirely answer. How did he sleep? On that day, probably terrible, but the night before? Well.

"Good." Oh, God, his voice sounded so squeaky. He had forgotten how unbearably high pitched it used to be.

"That's good. What do you want for breakfast?"  
Maybe this wasn't so horrific. He didn't have to do anything by himself. "Uhh, I don't know."  
After some thinking (mostly by his mom), he ended up having waffles. Again? Weird. At least waffles were good.

After breakfast he went back to his room again. He almost wished he had that submarine book again, but he didn't think he had gotten it until some time in college. And that wasn't going to come for a long time. Too bad; maybe had had some other books, though.

He looked, and the only one he found of interest was _Watership Down._ He read a couple chapters of that before he decided that was for another day.

So, what else was there to do? Play video games? No. Not today, either.

He supposed he could go outside...

-

Without his camera the world wasn't quite as interesting. With his camera, he could really look at everything, and examine every little bit of nature up close, and all together try to capture all of it in an image as best as he could. With his camera, he felt almost like he could control what he saw, and what he took out of the world. Without it, though, it was just there. Everything was around him, and it wasn't nearly as easy to take it all in.

It was nice, though. It being September, the air was just the right temperature, and he could walk around without feeling the blistering heat of summer or the chills of winter. It was just nice, the only source of real contentment in his life at the moment.

He decided to take a walk; the good thing about being a respectable only child that kept to himself was that he could pretty much do whatever he wanted or go wherever he wanted to without any repercussions. Plus, it was the nineties again, and he was pretty sure there was a high degree of safety back then. Or maybe that was his kid-filtered memories blocking every bad thing that had ever existed.

Regardless, he was on his way. He left his house and walked down the sidewalk, putting his hands in his pockets and generally trying to make the most of the day. There was no one in sight, which was normal for his neighborhood. Not that many people lived there, which was both a positive and negative thing.

The leaves were beginning to colorize, it being nearly autumn, and a few fell at his feet, only to be quickly swept away by the breeze. This was nice, actually. At least the world cared about him, or at least itself.

He decided to go to the park, because why not. It was deserted too, thankfully, and he lied down on the grass. It tickled his legs, but he ignored that, because that was part of being a kid, too.

What was he doing? He was given an opportunity no one had ever, ever gotten before - to be a kid again, an actual kid - and he was spending it mourning the loss of his adulthood. Why? Was he really that much of a pathetic grown-up, so caught up in his life that he had forgotten what he had grown from? Maybe he was.

Wow. That put an entirely new spin on his day - a day that was halfway over, or halfway wasted. Wow. So that was what he was, huh.

He didn't know what to think. That could lead to any number of conclusions, most of them inaccurate by default, and he had enough thoughts in his brain. All he wanted to do now was lie there and absorb everything.

And so he did. He stared up at the bright blue sky, and let all his thoughts just wander away from him, just wash away and dissolve, for the first time in so, so many years. He thought about everything, and he thought about nothing. Everything was there, but everything was gone, and it felt incredibly relaxing, so much that he barely even wanted to get up.

Was this what he had been missing? Really and truly missing in his life? All he was doing was getting some sun and relaxing, but it felt almost healing. Maybe he needed to stop worrying. Maybe he needed to let some things go - most things - and let them pass. Because he couldn't control everything. Ha.

He wished he could do that. The fact of the matter was that he was an incredibly worry wart, and had been for pretty much all of his life. There hadn't really been a time where he had let himself go like this, and just forget about all his problems, and let them be. Well, maybe he had done that back when he really was this age. It had been such a long time, so many years of anxiety, and it seemed to do nothing but grow and grow as he got older.

Whenever he eventually got back to his old time, he would take his camera out and go exploring. Go on an adventure, outside, with himself or with Adam, and forget about the rest of the world. Yeah, that would be nice. Very nice indeed.

Maybe it was time to get up, or maybe not. Maybe he would lie here some more for a while. Yeah, that was nice too.

-

He came back to his house eventually, walking back from the park and back down the sidewalk, not thinking about much at all. He stared at his feet; he had always had large feet for his age, only really catching up when he was an adult, and when he had been a kid they had always bugged him. Now, though, from an adult perspective, they didn't seem that bad. He really did worry about too much, especially too many small, ridiculous pieces of minutiae.

His mom had barely noticed that he was gone, which he had expected. She had never really policed his actions much when he was a kid, which was probably why he had grown up to become a pretty decent adult. Rebellious kids tended to always be the ones whose parents didn't trust them.  
He had good parents, though. That at least he could say with confidence. They had been nice to him, and he had been nice to them, and there was mutual respect all around. It was quite comforting.

The rest of the day was... quiet. He supposed he could have spent a lot of it catching up on all he had missed since he left the age of nine; he could have climbed a couple trees, maybe, or ran around in circles, or complained about something - wasn't that what kids did? He had a feeling, though, that how he was acting was perfectly in line with how he had behaved when he was actually a nine year old. He really had been a shy introvert, and he always did lean more towards contemplating things than he did actually doing things. That was his nature, he guessed. And that wasn't bad at all.

Had Adam been like this? Certainly. There were some parts of Adam that were still like that; he tended to be quiet, and think to himself, and have a sense of wonder for the world that he only expressed in his own personal way. He was that way too, most of the time; when he was around Adam, of course, he could act rather extroverted, forgetting who and where he was and concentrating fully on the both of them together, and talk to him for hours on end. Being apart from him had drawn out his introverted side, though; it had been pushed aside when Adam was around, and now that he was alone it could flourish all he wanted, with nothing and no one to stop it. Was that good? Maybe. It was him, after all. It wasn't a separate personality; it was him, and it was who he had been all along. Had he left that to die? Apparently not.

Adam understood that, though. He had lived through a very similar life as well, and he knew the values of both introversion and extroversion. He was just like him. So why did he feel like he understood it better than him?

He could have lived this day a million times in a row and he probably wouldn't figure it out. Maybe it was the lack of distractions, or maybe it was because he was nine again and everything in the world was a mystery to be discovered and solved, or maybe it was because he was truly by himself, but the few short hours he had allowed himself to really live had opened his eyes. Was that bad? No, not really. Was it good? He wasn't sure.

He wasn't sure of anything, and maybe that wasn't really a bad thing, either.

-

The next day would come, and he would live with whatever life decided he should experience. For the last few hours of the day, though, he was nine, and that was really and honestly okay. It was bizarre, yes, and totally unique, and weird on an infinite amount of levels, but it was okay. He had survived that, and he had survived the other three days of weirdness, and he would survive whatever it was to come.

Maybe he would be by himself again. Maybe some familiar faces would show up; maybe Adam's all too familiar face would show up, and he would be truly happy again. Maybe _his_ Adam's face would show up, and he would get to live with him permanently again (as he should), and all this nonsense and downpour of unexpected days would cease for good. There was no use in guessing, really; whatever would hit him would hit him, and the most he could do was wait for it to happen.


	5. Chapter 5

Well, he was back in his house again, but somehow it was different this time - again. He wasn't older - he was his own age again, or at least some age very close to it, he could tell. It was his and Adam's house, and his and Adam's bedroom, and his and Adam's bed, but the only thing that was amiss was that Adam wasn't there.

Nope - he wasn't there at all, and it didn't feel as if he had just left, due to their being a lack of any sort of warmth on his side of the bed. Maybe he was... doing something? He couldn't think of what. Maybe it was like earlier, when he had slept in and Adam had gotten up early. He looked at the clock - nine forty-five. No, that didn't seem to be the case, unless Adam had gotten up extremely early.

Maybe this was the future, and Adam had gotten famous and was on tour, like they had dreamed about. That would have been nice indeed, but why wouldn't he have taken him if that were the case? It didn't make sense. He said he would, too, back when this whole fiasco started.

Maybe he was... no. He couldn't even think of that. He had to be around here somewhere. Maybe what he should really do was get out of bed and go find him himself.

He pulled the covers off and got out of bed, stretched, and walked over to the bathroom just to make sure that he really hadn't aged again. Nope, it seemed to be his regular, familiar expression. But wait... maybe he did look a little older. There were a few bags under his eyes, for one, and he just looked... generally older. Maybe he was imagining it.

So many maybes, and he was barely working to find answers to his problems.

He walked down the hallway. Everything so far seemed to look the same, although he had thought that back when he had aged twenty-two years. But this wasn't 2039, it was sooner than that. Nothing should be any different.

Well, something was different, and it answered his question as to where Adam was. On the couch, fast asleep.

He frowned. That was strange, and not exactly good for a number of reasons. Had he passed out? Had he gotten up early and went back to sleep? Was it something else?  
He would have to take caution with this. This was unfamiliar territory yet again, and this time it could have spawned from a number of sources. Maybe he would cut down the sarcastic jokes this time.

Adam seemed to have unconsciously noticed he was there, as his eyes slowly opened and he looked at him. He didn't look entirely pleased to see him.

"Good morning," he said, trying to at least be polite.

Adam didn't say anything in response, but just turned over to face the inside of the couch.

"Hey," he said. He was worried now; obviously something was up, and he had done something to upset Adam, and he had no clue what it was. How could he have possibly upset him? He usually tried to avoid doing that at all costs.

"Are you gonna apologize?" Adam murmured. Great, so he had done something. How was he supposed to apologize for something of which he was literally totally unaware?

"I..." He didn't even know what to say. Saying no would make him seem like a complete jerk, and saying yes would imply he knew what he had done wrong.

"Maybe. I don't know. It's confusing."  
"What is there to be confused about?"  
This was a fiasco in itself. He would have whole heartedly apologized if he knew what the heck it was, but he didn't, and he couldn't possibly tell Adam that.

"...I don't know. Come on."

" _You_ come on. I don't want to be the one apologizing."

He didn't want him to be either. He agreed with Adam; he had probably been a major jerk, and very rude somehow, and he should apologize for it immediately, because that would make things easier. But no, this had to be the day that he was transported to, the day where he had to figure everything out by himself when it should already be part of his knowledge. Why did the universe hate him so much? What had he even done? 

"...I'm sorry."

"You are?"  


"Yeah. Completely."

"Hm." He still wasn't looking at him, or making any move to do so.

"I'm sorry. And I love you, I swear."

"You do?"  


What in the name of heck had he done to him? Said he didn't love him? In what crazed universe would he do that?

"Yes." That was it - a statement. "You're great, and amazing, and I love you."  


"Hm." Again. Still not moving.

"I don't know why you won't believe that."

"'Cause you're... I don't know."

"'Cause I suck?"  


"Yeah. You suck."

He hated his other self for whatever he had done. Adam was sad, and he was the one who had to deal with it and make it all good again. Thanks, other self.

"And I'm a huge jerk?"  


"The hugest."  


"I can go with that."

"Hm." He wished he would stop doing that. It was starting to get irritating.

"Honestly, you can say whatever mean things you want, 'cause I deserve it."  


"Do you mean it?"  


"Well, yeah. Hit me with whatever."  


"I mean do you mean you're sorry."  


Adam could be so confusing sometimes. "Yeah."

"Totally?"  


"Of course, yeah. Come on. Do you want me to make you coffee?"

"That would be nice." He didn't have a lot of emotion in his tone. Poor Adam. He would try to comfort him, but it seemed oddly inappropriate.

He made him a cup of coffee, taking care not to over-boil it. He gave it to Adam, who sat up and took it without saying a word, and he took a sip.

"It's all right," he mumbled.

"Yeah, that's me, _all right,_ " he said.

Adam winced. "Don't start this up again."  


What? "I'm not."

"Yeah, well... whatever." He scooted over to allow him to sit down.

"Okay, let's do a thing," he said, momentarily struck with inspiration. "You can say whatever the heck you want me to say, and I'll only say something back if you end whatever you're saying with a question."

"Is that gonna work?" He took another sip of his coffee.

"We'll see, I guess. Okay, go."

Adam rolled his eyes, took another sip, swallowed, and said, "Okay. I love you to death, but sometimes you can be pretty dang overprotective and jealous."

Oh. Well, he supposed he was. That wasn't much of a surprise.

"I mean, I guess a little bit of that isn't too bad, but you... I guess you take it a little far sometimes. And I get that, because I'm like that sometimes too, but the fact is that you've never had a boyfriend outside me."

That was also true, and it wasn't even arguable.

"So I can't be jealous of anyone else, because there was never anyone else. And maybe for you, 'cause you can't compare it with me, you think it's maybe okay to, like, want to fight anyone I've ever been with."

That was also true. What was Adam getting at?

"But..." He took another sip. "It's not okay. If I could have engineered my life so that I never had a boyfriend or whatever and I was only with you forever, that's how it would have gone, but I didn't know you for twenty-eight years. That's a lot, I mean, I could have been married to someone else by then. And yeah, I know that's scary to think about -" Another sip. "- but that's not how it happened." He paused.

Well, this was an interesting conversation. Obviously he had done or said something out of jealousy - but what? And for whom?

Adam with a boyfriend, not him. He had never really thought about it, although he knew Adam had had one before him. Why would he be jealous?

"The only thing that matters, and that should matter forever, is that I'm married to you now. Only you, and you alone. And yeah, I know that's a song and it's really cheesy, but it's true. There's absolutely..." He paused again, this time sounding as if he might cry. He watched him with worry.

"There's absolutely _no one_ else in the world that I would want to be involved with but you, and for the rest of my life it's only going to be you. And I know you know that most of the time. And... I'm sorry I had a boyfriend before you."

"Don't be sorry," he murmured.

"Well, I am sorry. I wish I hadn't had a boyfriend. He was wonderful and all, but I wasn't nearly as in love with him as I am with you. Not even close, not even close to being not even close. If I were never with him, maybe I would be sad then, but I would be happier now. I was all depressed when we broke up, because he had meant a lot to me, and I know you hate to hear that, but before you I really... no, I shouldn't say that."

After a moment, he said, "No, go on."

"I don't want it to hurt you again."

"I deserve it, come on."

"No... well. Before you I had him,  and I had very fleeting thoughts that I was gonna marry him, because he was my boyfriend. I loved him, and I kissed him and held him like I do with you, and that was my life then."

Oh. Well, that did kind of hurt to think about. Adam, kissing someone else... loving someone else... some other guy. Hm.

"But the thing is, this was a long time ago, and I had no clue what was gonna come. I didn't know what being with you would be like. If I did know, I would have dumped him and tried to find you, 'cause this is so, so much better."

"Even when you sleep on the couch?"

"Yeah, even then. Actually, forget this couch. It sucks so much to sleep on it when you're not doing it with me."

He smiled. Good old Adam.

"Anyway. I think the point here is that we might as well forget I had a boyfriend. He's not here anymore. And honestly, good freaking riddance. You're here, and you're worth more to me, and I love loving you more than anyone. So there."

They were quiet for a moment.

"That was full of a lot fewer insults than I expected," he said.

Adam smiled for the first time that day. "Also, you need to shut up sometimes."

"I know that. Very much so."

"And you need to pay attention to what's happening now, not worrying about how I felt when I was kissing some dude years ago. It wasn't that great, by the way."

"Really?"

"Nothing compared to you. He was good-looking and all, but he wasn't exactly a master of kissing." He frowned. "You have nicer lips, too."

"I do, huh."

"Yeah. Much more fun to smooch all the time." He sighed. "Thanks for the coffee."  
"No problem."

"I'm sorry I suck so much."  
"No you don't, don't say that."

"I'm a baby."  


"No, I am, come on. Maybe you need to insult me more."  


"Maybe. Um, you don't shower enough."  


"Neither do you!"

"That's probably because whenever we do shower, it's together, and then we go and have sex again and ruin ourselves again."

"You call that ruining? I call it improvement."  


"I call it getting sweaty again. Which means having to take another shower. Which we don't do."

"Maybe this is how human beings are truly meant to live."  


"Yeah, sure." He took another sip of his coffee. "This is getting cold."  


"Then go warm it up."  


"I can't, I'm lazy." He set it down on the table next to the couch. "Whatever. Today isn't that great so far, is it?

"I don't know. It's still early." He eyed Adam's coffee; maybe he would make some for himself. He could use it.

"Yeah. I don't even know what time it is, I left my watch in the bedroom."

"Maybe tonight you can actually sleep there."

"Yeaaahh, I think I'll go with that option." He picked up his mug again and drank from it, and made a face. "It really is cold now."

"Warm it up!"

"No." He set it down again.

"Baby." He picked it up and stood up, and walked over to the kitchen. Coffee did sound quite good.

"Told you I am." He lied back down on the couch and rested his head against the end of it.

He leaned against the kitchen counter and stared at the cabinets. They were in need of replacing, or at least repainting; they had come with the rest of the house when Adam had bought it, and had not been improved upon since. That had been... well, he didn't actually know.

"How long have you had this house?" he asked him.

"Since a few years ago."

Not the best of answers, but then again he didn't need a specific one. A few years, whatever that was - not too bad for cabinets, he supposed, but then again that didn't mean they were new.

"We need new cabinets."  


"Oh, yeah. Probably, yeah." He shifted over and looked around. "This whole house could use a bit of updating."  


"Not all of it." It was a pretty normal house, nice and a bit fancy but normal overall. Nothing in it was in serious disrepair, really.

"And we'll start with those stupid curtains in our room. I've been meaning to fix those since you moved in."

"Aw, I've kind of gotten used to those. My eyes have adjusted."  


"Mine never will. I hate them. They're ugly, too."  


"Wow, pretty passionate about curtains, are you?"

"I am. Especially those ones."

Yeah, he would be all right. He didn't seem sad any more, not in the slightest, even though he was still lying on the couch like he never wanted to get up from it again. That was understandable, though. Even though he himself hadn't lived it, he figured it must have been a rough night.

His coffee was ready, and after he warmed up Adam's he sat back down on the couch again (after Adam sat up again, that was). He handed Adam's mug to him and he took it.

He smirked. "So, tell me about how horrible your boyfriend was."

"He wasn't _horrible_ , really." He took a sip of his coffee. "Yeah, this is better. He was real sweet."  


"Really?"  


"I mean, you're sweeter. When you try to cheer me up it actually works."

"Thanks."

"It's true, though. He wasn't too effective at cheering me up when I needed it." He stared at the carpet ahead of them and frowned. "He was just like everyone else I knew, really, and not just with that. With everything. He fit in with everyone else."

"And I don't?"  


"Well, not in a bad way. I mean, you're a great person and all, so you fit in with everyone that way, but... ugh, I'm gonna get sentimental again."  


"Do it." He paused. "Or not, if it's too much."  


"Okay. You stand out, that's all I'm gonna say."

"That's all right, I guess."  


"I mean, you stand out to me. In my life. You're better to me than anyone else."  


"That's really good." He meant it.

"Uh huh. But I could go on and on about you." Another sip. "He had a nice cologne."

"Aw. I don't."

"Shut up. You have that one that I bought."

"I thought that was your cologne."

"Eh, it's both of ours." Pause. "It smelled like... flowers. In a manly way."

"I could smell like flowers if you wanted."

"I'm sure you could. But it was, like, _really_ like flowers. I don't know why, but every time I think about cologne in general I think about flowers. Because of association with that."

"Wow, must have been pretty flowery."  


"It _was._ "

"You should buy some."

"Yeah, whatever. Moving on from that topic. He was... a brunet."

" _That's_ a surprise."

"Yeah, I know, right. Big shocker. And... well. I don't know. It wasn't all happy memories. There's a reason we broke up, and it wasn't pretty."

He felt like his spine had been set on a cold fire. His eyes widened. "What did he do to you?"

"Oh, nothing bad. Just... he was kind of bossy. And it got to me. And we had arguments a lot, and I'm terrible at fighting so I always ended up feeling bad, and one day I was like -" He pushed away his free hand. "Get out of my life, I dont want anything to do with you. And I haven't seen him in a very long time, and that's the end." With that, he shrugged and took another sip of his coffee.

He had no idea what to make of that, or what to think, or what to say. Suddenly the idea of making fun of this faceless guy didn't seem too humorous anymore. Did Adam still hurt from that? Why did he never do anything about that?

"You've helped me before," said Adam, not at all helping his silent paranoia that he could read his mind. "When it was really hurting me. Before. Don't worry, I'm pretty much over it now."  


"You sure?"  


He nodded.

"All right. 'Cause I don't want to... hurt you more."  


"You know what? You don't. Ever."  


"Not even last night?"

He paused, and after a moment said, "Not even then."

-

The rest of the day wasn't much to speak of, and he hadn't expected it to be anything crucial or exciting. Not after that talk, which had continued for quite some time until both of them eventually called it quits and parted ways for a few hours. It was mostly quiet, similarly to how it had been twenty-two years in the future - or was it less now?

He had checked a calendar, and it was August 2018. In other words, just over a year from the time he was from originally. Not much had changed, but somehow, things felt different. Even though he and Adam had apparently been separated by a hallway for the night before, they felt almost closer. They probably were; it had been another year of their marriage, and they had had time to get to know each other more and more. It was strange; even though they were so similar, they were still their own distinct personalities, and had lived lives that were in fact dissimilar from one another, even though for the most part they had been nearly identical. Would he ever get to really, honestly, and truly know Adam inside and out? 

It was strange how similar those two days had been, even though they were decades apart. Adam had been his same self in both of them, showing two sides of his personality, maybe, but still behaving in his somehow utterly unique self. Above all, though, the clearest part of both those days was that Adam loved him, and that was the most reassuring thing of all.


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning he woke up, but it wasn't as if he had woken up at all. He wasn't in any sort of room, certainly - wait, where the heck was he?

He was surrounded by... nothing. Technically, the concept of 'nothing' couldn't actually physically exist, but if he had to describe what was around him in one word, that would do it. It didn't even seem like there were any colors around him - it could have been light, it could have been dark, it could have been both or something in between. He didn't know; he hadn't experienced anything of this nature in his life.

Maybe it wasn't his life anymore. Maybe he had died somehow. He looked around; yep, this could be a good candidate for whatever happened after death. Blank nothing, emptiness, a total lack of substance, except for him.

Nah, that was stupid. Wouldn't he know if he had died? Wouldn't he have even the shortest memory of it? Maybe he had died in his sleep somehow. But wouldn't he know that too? And how the heck could that have happened in the first place? He had been with Adam that first night before anything weird had started to happen, as happy and healthy as could be, and he had gone to sleep as normal. Nothing had been different.

So what was this? And why was he here? And what had the past few days been all about? Maybe he had had a chance to revisit moments in his life before he actually died, or at least came to this sorry excuse for a place. Well, they hadn't been very exciting memories; none of them had been out of the ordinary at all, save for maybe their anniversary - but that was still rather ordinary. If he had died, wouldn't he revisit wonderful days like his wedding or the birth of the daughter he apparently had? That made more sense, really. But then again, nothing made sense. And he was surrounded by nothing.

He was almost nervous to say something, or even move. If this were truly nothing, would any sort of action he happened to take disrupt it? Blow up the universe? Hm. Who knows how many times he had come close to doing that.

He gave in to his curiosity. "Hello?" His voice bounced back, and echoed: "Hello? Hello? Hello?"  


"This is creepy," he muttered. That echoed too, although not quite as loudly or as many times.

"Hm." He looked around; still nothing, and it was beginning to hurt his eyes. Why was he here?

He started walking. He had no clue where he was supposed to go, or if he was even supposed to go anywhere at all, but somehow he felt the need to move - just to move, to work his legs and his mind. Why was he here?

"Anybody out there?" he yelled. Nope, just a bunch of echoes.

"Helloooooo? Anyone? Anyone in the universe want to tell me where the heck this is?"

No one, apparently. He continued walking, and continued looking around, although there wasn't much to see. Even the ground underneath him didn't look as if it held any substance. Maybe it was like one of those fluffy white clouds in cartoons.

His footsteps echoed, too. Thud, thud, thud, thud, louder than he expected. The silence around him was deafening; he had never been in solitary confinement, but he was sure this was what it was like, only worse. At least there you probably knew what was going on, and why you were put there. He was aware of neither.

"Hellooooo? Hello? Hello? Hey... it's good old Rick again, Mister Rick Young. Ha!"

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" Echo, echo, echo. It was starting to drive him crazy - but then again, he was probably already crazy.

"I must be craaaaazy... crazy, crazy, crazy. Is this what happens when you literally lose your mind? Or maybe I'm in a coma. Is this what happens when you're comatose?"

He was met with nothing but more and more silence, and it was beginning to anger him.

"Is this heaven? Do I get to spend eternity in nothing? Thanks!"

He wasn't sure whom he was talking to. Probably himself. Or whoever was out there, somewhere on some astral plane, who might have just started watching him. Ha. Like that was likely.

"You could have at least given me Adam to keep me company," he muttered. That would have been nice. It would have been comforting, for one - he would have been able to share his confusion and irritation with someone else. It also would have been Adam, who could brighten his day no matter how mundane or bizarre it was.

He kicked the air, and nothing resulted from it but a leg that now ached somewhat. He ignored it; there were worse things to worry about at the moment. Like the nothingness, or the simultaneous brightness or darkness or whatever the hell it was that he was surrounded by, or those constant echoes that were hurting his ears, or...

Was that a person? It was a silhouette, definitely. Yes, definitely; as he walked closer, it became more and more in focus, and he could almost see who it was...

Walk, walk, walk. He would have run, but it probably would have been loud, and it might have hurt his leg more, and anyway, he didn't know who this was. Company, definitely, the company he had just asked for. Was it Adam? No, probably not, and he shouldn't get his hopes up. Was he imagining it? No... no, he couldn't have. So who was it? Someone he didn't know? Someone he did? Someone...

When he finally got close enough, he saw that it was himself. It had to be; himself, but much older, and staring at him like he had caught the plague and the symptoms were visible.

"There you are," he said.

He stopped and blinked, and blinked again. Yeah, that was him. Him, but older... older. Older than himself twenty-two years in the future, even. Not seriously old, but middle aged, maybe a bit more. He would have been creeped out by it if these sort of freaky occurrences didn't happen every day.

"I was thinking something had gone wrong. Thank God." That was his voice, yes. Even that sounded older, but still recognizable.

"Uh, you're me," he said, unsure of what else to say. Hi? Glad to finally see someone else in this weird place? It was true, even though it was himself, but his mind had gone momentarily blank.

"Yep," said his other self. He was looking at him as if he were a test subject now, scrutinizing him with curiosity. He suddenly felt uncomfortable.

"What..." He stopped. This was getting to be far too much. "What is going on?"

His other self looked around, as if there were something else to see besides the nothingness. "Good question."  


"What, you don't know either?"  


"No, I do. I need to keep you safe."  


"From what?"

His other self didn't answer, but continued to just look around. "Time travel stuff."

Well, that stumped him. "What?"

"You heard me." He looked at him again, directly and seriously. "Look. There's a lot of stuff going on right now, and I don't know if you're able to hear all of it."

"Sure I am," he said with indignation. "What am I, a kid?"

"Compared to me you are. But anyway, it's some serious stuff."

"Why are you here? Old dude."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, you're old."

"You're tiny. That goes with the rest of it."

"Are you gonna bother telling me?" He gazed around again; still nothing. "It's not like we're running out of time."

"We are, that's the thing."

He raised his eyebrows. "Seriously?"

"Yes. Haven't weird things been happening to you?"

"What, like waking up in some weird time and place in the past and future?"

"Exactly."

He looked around again, hoping that some magic door would come out of nowhere and allow itself to be opened and take him away from here. "Is that your fault?"

"Hate to say it, but yeah."

He looked back at him and frowned. "Thanks."

"Hey, you know... us. Messing stuff up."

"When's the last time I ever messed something up?"

"I don't know, how old are you?"

He was beginning to dislike his future self. "Twenty-seven."

"Hm. I'd say it was the war."

He hated being reminded of that. "Gee, thanks. Whatever. How old are you, anyway?"

He smirked at him. "Guess."

"I don't know, seventy?"

His smirk disappeared. "What!"

"I told you you're old."

"Not that old, shut up. I'm fifty-eight."

What. "That is old!" He laughed, mostly because everything was so freaking ridiculous.

"You should see Adam."

"Oh, yeah. I bet he's old, too. You're a couple of gay old dudes."

"Okay, you're annoying. I need to tell you everything still. Didn't you want to hear about that?"

Oh, yes, he did. "Yeah."

"Finally. Just shut up for a few minutes."

"Can do."

"Right. So, I think you can probably guess that time travel is real crazy and probably shouldn't be messed with."

He was still completely clueless as to how time travel came into the picture, but said "Yeah, sure."

"And yet, you can imagine people would still mess with it."

"Absolutely."

"Uh huh."

"Can you imagine you would be one of those people?"

If anyone were to mess with time travel if it were a thing, it would be him. "Sure."

His older self looked scathed. "You sure accepted that quickly."

"Yeah, whatever. What's this leading to?"

"You sure you want to hear?"

"Yes! What else would I want to hear? How hot Adam is in the future?"

"Pretty hot."

"Yeah, I bet. He could have ten warts on his nose and you would think it was sexy."

"Ten? Really?"

"Isn't that what happens when you get old? You get warts?"

"Okay, first of all, I'm not old. Second, no." He cleared his throat, and looked around again. "This really is a weird place, isn't it?"

"You're telling me."  


"It's like nothing. It _is_ nothing. Anyway." He looked back at him again. "When you get older - like, me older - time travel's gonna become second nature to you. You may think it's pretty confusing and mysterious now, but over the years you're gonna learn all about it, and use it a lot. Trust me on that. Not saying what life's gonna be like then, but everyone's gonna treat you like an expert."  


"An expert? On time travel?"  


"Yes. You know how... wait, you don't know yet. Well -"  


"What don't I know?"

"Nothing _crucial._ Just... eh, I'll tell you. Adam's going to become famous."

"Ah, he is?" Well, that was good news. He supposed. That was what they had been wishing for, after all, way back on that first - or last - night.

"Yeah."

His tone didn't sound too bright. Maybe he had gotten used to it, or maybe it was a bad thing. He was so mysterious about it, it was hard to tell.

"So, you're an expert on time travel. Which makes sense, right, I mean, our entire lives revolve around it. Or at least mine does. We're here because of it... or we used to be there. Now we're in nothing."

"Yeah, speaking of, do you know about that?"

"I'll get to it. So, Adam and I are both pretty involved in that. It's... I don't know how to really explain it to you."  


"I take it in the future I don't get better with that?"

"Well, maybe a little. Anyway. There's a whole lot you're going to learn about it, and I don't want to spoil any of it for you, but it gets crazy. Seriously crazy. Like, whole new realm of physics crazy."

"Is part of this time traveling?" He was beginning to catch on to what his future self was saying - almost. All of it was so weird, and like he said, he wasn't too good at explaining it all.

"Well, yeah. All of it is time travel. Me talking to you right now is time travel."  


"I figured. Is this right here time travel? I mean, all of this." He indicated with a sweep of his hand the vast nothingness surrounding them.

"This? It's... well, yeah. It's time travel. Like I said everything is. Time dictates our lives, you know."  


"I know. So, what exactly happened?"

He took a deep breath. "What happened was that I got a little too into it. Time travel's pretty cool, even if it is weird and complex."

"And you messed it up somehow?"

His older self frowned, looking just as confused as he felt, though probably for a different reason. "See, none of this stuff exists for you yet, so I don't know how to explain it to you. I tell you, there's so much to know about time travel, way more than just going to the past or future or jumping time lines. And... I guess this is where it gets real serious."

More serious than it already was? This would be frightening.

"Where we are right now... this is gonna sound really crazy, but we're pretty much inside the flow of time."  


"What?" That had made no sense whatsoever.

"Not inside time itself, because that would be weird and pretty much impossible, but close enough. It's nothing because there's technically no space to go around with it. It's the only way I could technically meet you without messing something up." He looked over his shoulder. "God, I'm sorry, this is so stressful. We're going to run out of time, I told you."

"We're in a time flow thing, how are we gonna run out of it?"  


"Because -" He stopped and looked around again. "I shouldn't be here, either."

"What? Are you getting in trouble again?"  


"Maybe. I told you time travel is serious business. And it is, it's not just experimenting around like you do."

"Well, how bad is it?"

"It's... regulated. It used to just be us and Adam - long story - but when people really started figuring time travel out... they talked to us a lot, and... did stuff, and it wasn't fun but they got a lot of information about us."

That was scary. "What did they do to you - us? And Adam?"

"No time to explain that. The big thing is - just follow me here, I know you don't get it - what I didn't know until way, way later is that infinite time loops kind of suck for the rest of the universe. Time really isn't supposed to be messed around with, not at all, and to create something huge in it is bad. Even if we did try to make it so there weren't any paradoxes."  


"Yeah. There weren't any, were there?"  


"No, that was fine. But it sent out a lot of disruptive signals through the universe. It wouldn't affect anyone else, thankfully, but it did affect us. Not 'til recently did I realize that it was actually messing up, well, your life. Your personal time line."

"My... is that why I was going all over the place?"  


"That's why. It actually went on for a long time, so much that it was starting to mess itself up and repeat some of the days."  


Well. That was definitely scary. He had been doing this for a long time?

"How long did it go?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, sorry. A while. Definitely longer than this."

That was also scary, so much that all he could do was stand there and stare at his future self. He had gone through more days than this... a whole lot more days... and it wouldn't have stopped if it weren't for him. He could have gone on, never getting back to his life with...

"Is Adam okay?"  


"What?"

"My Adam. When I'm..." This felt odd to say. "Twenty-seven. Is he okay?"

"He's fine for all of this. He's fine for me, he's fine for you."  


"Does he know about this?"  


"About you going back and forth? No."  


"Oh." Reassuring, but still troubling. This whole thing was a mess.

"He knows all the crazy stuff about time travel, though. I think I mentioned that."

"Yeah, you did. So, did you have to go through this?"

"I just escaped it. I would explain it, but..."  


"Weird time travel stuff, yeah. You sure I'm gonna learn all that?"

"If you go the same way as me. Which you couldn't."

"I couldn't? Even though I'm you?" He was still utterly confused, and trying to keep on with this spiel was making it worse.

"We could be a hair width apart from each other. But that doesn't matter. Now, I'm gonna tell you something pretty serious, so you better listen."  


"Who else am I going to listen to?"  


"I don't know, but anyway, listen, 'cause it's about you. Us."  


He raised his eyebrows. This was sure to be good.


	7. Chapter 7

"Yeah, I don't know how to put this lightly," his future self said. He looked around at the nothingness again for a moment, and then looked back at him. "For the last couple years I've sort of... been on probation for all the time travel I do. It all started with this one incident, and ever since then they've been watching me, watching Adam, and watching..." He stopped and raised and eyebrow, and then he shook his head and said, "Screw it, you probably know by now. They've been watching our daughter, too, which seriously irks me, but I can't do a single thing about it."

"What are they, like, the government or something?" This was growing to be far more terrifying than he had originally thought; perhaps it was so terrifying because, given his past experiences with the wars on that planet, it seemed incredibly likely to happen.

"They're a section of the government all in charge of time travel, and regulating it, and making sure people don't go places without them knowing all about it before and after. It's hell, pretty much, and both Adam and I have tried to fight against it for a while now, but it's... pretty dang hard. They seriously watch everything, it's like a dystopia or something. In fact, it is."

"Wow." He had nothing to say now - so many questions, but he couldn't ask any of them. His mouth was dry, and he had the slightest shaky feeling.

"The worst part was I got all my privileges snatched out of my hands. Same with Adam, too, even though he shouldn't be blamed at all - heck, he used to be licensed, specially licensed, to travel in time. But because we were supposedly 'unsafe,' we either had to comply with them or go to jail."

"That's sick. And not like cool sick. Gross sick."

"I know." He sighed and looked around again before looking back at him. "I mean, it sucks, but I'm just glad I have Adam and Brielle."

Brielle. Hm. That was a pretty name.

His older self was quiet now; he broke his gaze and stared down at his feet.

He was speechless, and all he could do was reach out and pat his other self's arm. Yep, he was as solid as he was.

His other self looked up. "But anyway. What I need you to do - what I need you to promise to do, and live by it - is use time travel as little as possible, in the future when it's a big part of your life. Not to just go on a joy ride or a quick vacation or anything. If you do use it, make sure it has a specific purpose. Just make sure you're responsible with it, because I wasn't, and now it's costing me."

"What if it's still not enough?"  


"Then..." He also seemed speechless, so much that he just stared at him for a couple moments before saying, "Make sure you have everything and everyone you need."

He could do that, he supposed. It was fun to go time traveling to different times and places every now and then, but if doing so was going to put him and everyone he loved in danger, it wasn't worth it.

"I'll do that," he said.

"Good. Now, I bet you're still wondering about the week you've had, aren't you?"

"A bit. Let me see if I've got everything first. The thing I did, whatever it is, was so bad with the time travel stuff that it basically blew up the universe, and it made time go crazy for me, so it was sending me back and forth everywhere until somehow you found a way to cut it short?"

"You exaggerated it a lot, but yeah. Because of your non-paradox, you disrupted the flow of your - our, sorry - personal timeline, and... well, the way I stopped it was basically how I'm here with you."

"How... wait, first things first, what happened in those days that I lived in? Did I replace the actual me that lived there, or was it a separate timeline thing, or...?" He was getting a headache just from discussing all of this. Why couldn't he live a normal life that didn't have a single thing to do with time?

"What I think happened is that you lived - or will live - all those days twice. Once where you know what the heck is going on, and another time where you're just placed there randomly."

"Okay... that's weird. So which one is the real day?"

Was he confused about any of this? He didn't seem to look like it. "What I think, actually, is that your... other selves, or whoever actually lived that day, said and did the exact same things that you did. So there was no difference."

" _That's_ crazy. Everything just went in to place like that?"  


His other self shrugged. "Makes sense. Sort of."  


"None of this makes sense. But whatever. I don't know anything."  


"You know a lot more than you think. And you're going to learn way more than you can think of."

"Cheesy," he mumbled.

"I am cheesy. You know how we talk to Adam."

"Like he's the king of England and we're one of those guard guys standing outside the palace?"

"Uh, not really."

"Like he's the king of England and we're a humble servant?"

"No? Where are you getting these from?"

"I just want him to be the king of England."

"We're both the kings of England. Regardless! Back to the actual important stuff. I stopped you from being stuck in a weird time loop thing by going in to, well, one of these." He looked to his right, at what he assumed was the still - weird and still - boring nothingness.

"The flow of time, or whatever?"  


He looked back at him again. "Uh huh."  


"How the heck did you do that, now?"

"Time travel, I told you. Once you really get to understand it, you'll know."

"Hit me."  


"With what?"  


"Knowledge. How does it work?"  


"Well... I don't know how to put it simply."

"Try."

"Demanding, aren't you? All right." For the first time, he appeared to be confused. "So, over the years there's been a lot of... science done, well, a lot of research done on how time travel works. Eventually, someone figured out how to stop time."

His eyes widened. "What?"

"Yeah, but it's not really what you think it is. It's not stopping time for everyone - it's just stopping time for you, and you get to control it. It's... really freaky. But to figure that out, the person who did it used a machine that they built. It basically deals with time and the way it flows. It's pretty small, too, but it's not like it's been patented or anything, it's kept under lock at the facilities the time travel regulation people use."

"So how did you get one?"  


He took a deep breath, and he stared at him.

"Okay. Now, like I said, this has to do with both of us, and I seriously warn you to watch what you're doing, 'cause you could very, very well end up in trouble."  


"You stole it, didn't you?" He wasn't sure if he was impressed by that or not. One one hand, it was stealing, which was wrong; on the other, it was from what sounded like a high tech facility that probably used a lot of security.

His other self swallowed, and it looked almost as if he were blushing. "Yeah. Me and Adam did. A whole shebang, and it was _incredibly_ scary, but we managed to get one. And what you have to understand is that these things are very complicated and very serious. If you get the settings right... time pretty much engulfs you, and you can go wherever you want, and pretty much do whatever. That's where we are now."

He gazed around again. If he looked hard enough, everything around him seemed to sparkle and shimmer, almost, so much that it was close to making his eyes ache. It was really unlike any place he had ever been, or anything physical that he had ever seen; in fact, none of his surroundings could possibly be any form of physical. There was the ground, sure, which he could walk and stand on, but that seemed to be composed of the same strange stuff as everything else that he could see. There was him and his other self, but then again, they were actual people, not... the embodiment of time, or whatever it was. he couldn't even describe what was around him with one color; maybe white was the closest, but it seemed to fluctuate between every different color at once.

It was weird, and he didn't want to look at it. Instead, he looked back at his other self.

"We're _in_ time?" he asked, just to clarify.

"Basically, yeah."

"That is... so trippy."  


"I know."  


"Did you and Adam do this? Or can it only be one person?"  


"For all I know, it's just one person at a time. Both of us can be here because... well, it's pretty obvious."  


"We're the same guy, yeah. How did you find me?"

"That was tricky. I needed to catch you when you were dreaming - not just when you were sleeping, but when you were in the middle of a dream. REM sleep, it's called. That's when your brain is super active and everything. Not that this is all a dream or anything - it's all real."

"You sure?"  


"I mean, I _think._ I told you this stuff is weird."  


"It creeps me out. You got me in a dream?"  


"That's when I could reach you, yeah. I tried before, but whenever I did, you got swept away to a different time, and I would have to go and chase you down again. It was exhausting, really, and I had to go back several times just because I was paranoid of being caught. I'm still paranoid, that's why I keep looking around."  


"I figured. So you got me before I switched?"

"Uh huh. Right away, when you finally got in that deep sleep. But then you didn't show up in front of me immediately, and I was scared I had lost you again, maybe this time for good."  


"Oh yeah, I was all alone. How come that happened?"  


He shook his head. "I honestly don't know. There's so much to know, really, it's impossible to know it all or you won't know anything else. And I have a lot more information I would rather store in my brain."

"I get it. Well, I'm here now."  


"You are." He sighed. "I'm gonna try to get you back to your regular time. What day was it?"

"Uh, July thirteenth. 2017."

"At midnight. That's when you switched, in case you were wondering."  


"Hm." Interesting tidbit, he supposed.

"I can get you back at a minute after. If I get it at midnight exactly, I don't know what'll happen." He blinked. "Hey, you had one day where it was your anniversary, right? Did you and Adam have sex?"

"Uh. Yeah." What was the point of asking that?  


"How long was it?"

"I don't know, not that long. Why?"

"Just wondering." For the first time, a grin appeared on his other self's face. "I don't know what would have happened if you went on for a while and you went past midnight."

"Oh... wait, what?"

"You would be so confused."

"Don't you remember that anniversary?"

"Dude, Adam and I had our thirty-second this year. You think I can remember all those?"

"I would hope so. You're slacking."  


"Yeah, whatever." He shook his head again, but this time out of amusement. "So, I have this." He pulled out what looked like a small metal tube. "Trust me on this - it's a tranquilizer, and it's harmless. I need to put you to sleep so I can send you back."  


His eyes widened again. "What? Seriously?"

"There's no other way without making it super risky. I've got this all planned out, no worries."  


"No worries? I can't worry about this? What if you kill me?" His breathing had quickened, and he was getting chills. What was happening? What was going to happen to him?

"I'm not going to kill you. I love you."  


He stopped. "Ew."

"Yeah, I know, gross. Trust me, though, this will work. I'm going to put you to sleep, and you'll go back to your time, all safe and sound. You can see Adam again."

That was the one plus to all of this. Seeing Adam - his Adam, not an Adam from a different time who was used to totally different circumstances. An Adam who knew everything that he knew. That would be so refreshing. He would kiss him the second he woke up, and it would be lovely.

"Am I going to remember all of this?"  


"Well... no. That's why I haven't stopped myself from telling you anything you shouldn't."  


"Oh." That was conflicting. He wouldn't necessarily mind getting rid of the days where he was a kid, and he could definitely do without that first day in his own house, but the days with Adam had been amazing. He would have to get rid of his memories of those, too? Oh, indeed.

"I know you don't want to get rid of the days with Adam," his other self said. "But you can make new and better memories. And trust me, you'll have so much sex with him you'll get tired of it."  


"Seriously? That day's actually going to come?"  


"Unbelievable, I know. Do it when you're young."  


"I'm always Young."

"Ha ha." He didn't sound remotely amused. "But yeah, you're going to forget all of that. I mean, come on, you can't remember having a daughter a few years before you have her."

"A few years?"  


"She's coming soon."  


"Great. I suppose I won't remember that either."  


"Nope. You're not going to remember any of this."  


"None of it?"

"Well... you know how you always try to remember your dreams the second you wake up, and no matter what you do or how fast you try and remember everything, it just slips away at the speed of light? And then five seconds later you're like- " He snapped his fingers. "Darn it, I was going to tell you my dream, but now I don't remember the details."

"Yep."

"It'll be like that. You're gonna wake up, and you might remember something, but it'll just go away, and you'll be left with the rest of your life going in the order that it should go. You might get deja vu every once in a while, but that's expected."  


"And I'll live those future days again?"  


"Exactly the same way that you did before. Or at least I think you will."

This was the epitome of confusing, but he had no questions about time travel - what could he ask, anyway?

"Are you and Adam happy? Despite all the crap that's happening to you?"

His other self smiled faintly. "Yeah. We are."

"Thirty-second anniversary, right?"

"And counting."  


"Good. Not that I thought we might ever break up or anything, but I just wanted to make sure."  


"You've got a happy life ahead of you. Don't get too cheeky with it."  


"But I _am_ cheeky."  


"Don't I know it. Any other questions?"  


Hm. Did he have any? Not really...

"Does sex get better?"  


"Man, you're full of questions. Why don't you figure it out for yourself?"  


"But does it?"

"I suppose. It gets more fun once you pass the first decade or so. That's when you're so comfortable with each other there aren't any surprises."

"Do you still have sex when you're fifty-eight?"

"Do you always ask these intrusive questions?"

"You're _me,_ come on."

"Yes, I do, do you really think I'm that old? I'm gonna put you to sleep."

"Rude." He sighed. "Okay. All of this will be gone?"  


"All of it."  


He took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm ready."  


"You're sure?"  


"Yeah."

His other self smiled sympathetically at him, and took a couple of steps forward, and that was all he knew.

 

 

-

He woke up the next day feeling somehow alert, as if he had already had a cup of coffee or two before he had awoken. He opened his eyes, and almost felt as if he were falling - but then the feeling passed, and he shrugged it off and looked over at Adam. He was still sleeping soundly, peaceful and undisturbed.  


"Hey Adam," he whispered. For some reason, he felt oddly overjoyed to see him, even though he hadn't gone more than two feet away from him for the whole night.

"Aaadaaaaam..." He shifted over and kissed the back of his neck. He was always so warm in the morning.

Adam shifted too. "Hm?"

"Adam."  


"Rick," Adam said drowsily.

"You awake?"  


"I am now. Mister Kisses."

"Hey, that's a nice name. I think I'll use it."  


"It sounds like a name you would give your cat." He turned around and looked at him. "Hi."  


"Good morning."  


"Good morning. How'd you sleep?"  


"You know, I can't really remember. I suppose it was good, 'cause I woke up happy."  


"It must be my general presence." He leaned in and lightly kissed him on the lips.

"Definitely. You're magic."  


"I am..." He kissed him again, and smiled. He smiled back.


End file.
